Conferences for developers as a way to senior? And what works?

I want to convey heartfelt greetings to eycharam, because of which conferences for developers often resemble more a job fair than a place where you can shake the neck of the authors of the framework. I want to spend a little on this occasion and tell you how we have thoroughly driven out of our conferences to special reservations all those who do not know which 10 types people are divided according to the knowledge of the binary calculus.

In general, below is about how to get the most out of attending a profile conference for developers, what can and can not be achieved, and where is the fat.

1. Practical application of knowledge

Practically never at conferences you will get solutions for current problems and tasks. Why? Very simple: if you need something here and now, then you are looking at Stack Overflow or asking your colleagues. Or you are looking for friends who know and can put everything on your fingers. It would be foolish to wait a few weeks or months of the conference to find out all this on it.
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Rather, it is about the outlook. Previously, they did not know how to solve it, and they would google it for 5 hours. Now you know, imagine someone else's experience, you can make a decision almost immediately. Here is a developer from Yandex shares:

“There was an interesting report about generics. There, type, jazzy with generics. After that, too, well, not directly following the results of the report, but, like, I also became interested in this subject more or less and rewrote something in my project. ”

On the other hand, the reports of professional speakers prepare for future tasks. That is, when something complicated will come up, you can remember which approach and why was discussed at the conference. And it will be much easier. Plus, there is an outlook that allows you to understand in many similar cases, which way you are about to dig.

This is what participant Sergey B. has been saying about this factor (participation in JPoint and Joker since 2013):

“It's hard to remember, but absolutely definitely Joker greatly broadens the mind. And even if we do not draw any practical conclusions from those reports that we listened to right at the moment of listening, in any case, this is postponed in the head. When we meet with some kind of problem, we remember that yes, we heard something like that. And secondly, we are expanding our horizons in the sense that we see what is happening in the industry and where everything is moving - this can even be seen by the topics of the reports. Our company is small, there is no special department that follows the trends. Therefore, we drive ourselves. In general, we have been developing custom software for Java for 8 years. We try to be present at both the JPoint and the Joker - of course, we cannot bring the whole team, but as a director I go every time.

... Since we have many projects on the Enterprise Edition, in each project there are, of course, batch processing tasks. We have always solved them manually before. Now it has become part of the standard, but we did not pay attention to this, and after the report it became clear that we would use this technology. The effectiveness of this technology is that it contains all the things that usually appear slowly during the implementation of batch processing. That is, you need to move the file in 100,000 lines - you write one line. Then you understand that you need checkpoints, that you need to do something with defective data, you need transactionality, monitoring. All this is written by hand. Now there is a standardized way, there is support for the container for such tasks, and we will use it. Although this is, of course, a little not in the style of Joker, but this report will be applied - not right tomorrow, but in a few weeks for sure. ”

Grisha B .:

“As Shipilev said in keyout,“ you need to approach this matter wisely. ” Not just like that, they say, “but I saw a cool thing - I’ll gash”. Everything is useful in practice, just not immediately. "

2. Worldview and learning

Conferences will not make you stronger-higher-faster simply because you are there. More precisely, for an objectively good stable effect, one would have to attend about 40–50 conferences (almost half of the university semester). There are just so many of them. It is useless to study at conferences, it is necessary to study independently.

Learning is another place. At conferences there is no focused training. Everyone just talks about his tasks and how he solved them. But this can also be useful - for example, there are many things that you don’t touch, because you don’t know what is best. After the conferences, you want to pick them up - this is how, for example, a participant from the past JPoint says

“There was a report from a guy from Deutsche Bank, I don’t remember his name. He talked about performance monitoring. We took advantage of this ... Well, there he took dumps and carried out a statistical analysis of these thread dumps. And on the basis of their watched, that he slows down. We later took advantage of this when we solved the performance problem of our applications. Also in 2015 there was a report by Andrei Pangin. He also talked about the java agent there, we use it periodically, especially if we have an application ... Well, the problem is not in our code, but in the application server. Something to climb there, podhachit. Last year, for example, we ordered an online broadcast. And we did it on corporate, and we did it like a JPoint, but we, local, in the office. This is good for juniors, this one was like that. This year they decided to come themselves, look again. Did not order. And already regretted that the guys did not pull up. ”

You can not step on other people's rakes (developer feedback UnitedTraders):

“We started to closely monitor the Postgres driver versions, because a comrade told me how he repaired quite dumb things in this very driver, the locks are pretty tough. And they looked at Cassandra, well, a little more intently, she did not go. But they looked.

You can also hear from the speakers what to learn and how. The most important thing is that you can see who and how solves various complex tasks. The Senior-developer way is a lot of improvisation, a lot of practice and the ability to see models for practical tasks. Often the mere possibility of “raising the head” above the routine helps to learn to think a little differently.

One can almost never become a Senior simply by learning a language (or a few). We still need to think like a professional developer - with task models and classes of tools, rather than concrete implementations. That is, simplifying conferences can teach you to see the code architecture a little differently.

Here is the story of a team with good experience:

“We have been going to conferences for a long time. Some reports have always had an applied interest. Now I have had time to visit three (reports), and everything is somehow relevant for me, even Shipilevsky keyout. Every time you discover something for yourself or study in more detail. I do not know what specifically to highlight. Every time you get what you expect to receive. And you can not consider it directly, they say, so I learned something and now I will go to gash it. It is rather a push for further detailed study and viewing. Because we are already experienced guys, it is difficult to surprise us with something. The conference is a place to talk and some way to break the isolation of your team. See what's in trend, what people are doing. See how relevant your team is right now. Another point from the point of view of practical benefits is communication with the speakers. The last time I chatted with them just like that. There was a speaker Venkat Subramaniam - I read his books, I often watch YouTube. It was interesting to talk to him live, to ask specific questions. As for the discussion areas ... You see Shipilev and think that he would ask such a question, and nothing comes to mind. ”

And here so the desire to pick something new is born (Nikolay):

“And these hardcore things ... They are usually just not looking for fun for the evening. And then, when you find out about them, you wonder: or maybe try it, or maybe, syak? The second is diversity. You sit at work, every day, plus or minus the same thing. And the conference is such an opportunity to plunge into a new world. It is highly motivating. You look at what the people are doing, and you think: “And I also seem to be no worse! In the evening I will come and see something too. ” And the conference acts as a recharge. Here, you work for a long time, everything is furious, and then you come, you recognize a lot of everything, you communicate, and already like a new breath of air. ”

Here the developer from KROK shares:

“Viktor Lavrentiev, the clean-pragmatic architecture of a breaststore, it was a very practical report, which again helps a lot when creating frameworks. I would also mention Kaleolu, the very first report. It just opens your eyes to when, at what points in the life of a project, what optimizations should be applied, and when to lower it. Just such an approach to managing the entire project. ”

3. Fan and drive

On the one hand, conferences are not entertainment and not rest, but on the other hand, this is it. We understood this when, at the request of the participants, all Joker / JPoint and DotNext from 2013 began to take place on weekdays, because on weekends at the midles and family seniors (now we are doing a combination of Friday-Saturday, so as not to wipe out two working days and not take all weekends).

Professionals actually learning is not very far from entertainment. Learning something new and communicating with colleagues is an opportunity to feel the fresh wind on your face. Therefore, by the way, many people go to reports that they wouldn’t need in their life, and (rarely) suddenly find out that it turned out to be more useful than planned. Training according to the plan, without entertainment and a share of randomness is a routine. At conferences, you can breathe out, learn something new and then return to normal work with an understanding of perspective.

And, of course, one of the important things is acquaintances. Not a party, but the opportunity to see those who have achieved something professionally, to know what and how they live. Here, notice how people talk about it.

Victor A.:

“In the past, the Joker was Baruch, who talked about Maven and Gradel. Interesting was the report. After him, I dug in Greydl, to see how to interact with him. Today, too, there is a report about Maven and Greydl, who listened, I will understand further. Reports about the Stream API and Java 8 also listen, also applicable in the work. Plus at the conference to the fig guys. "

Ivan E.:

“Because we liked last year - both the reports and the situation. I managed to meet with chance many people who had not seen for ten years, and this is very cool. From the useful - in that year there was a report that turned out to be accepted in practice, about mutational testing (speaker - Nicolas Frankel).

Today I am interested in two topics: microbench marks and microservice problems and distributed logging. I communicate with people, learn how to do it, get useful information and solutions for myself. ”

Eugene:

“The first Joker had a lot of useful stuff. Practical application - I know where to dig, so that interesting things for myself to study in more detail. It is difficult to name something concrete, because it is collected from different places bit by bit and then used in work. Well, plus communication with old friends. So I do not meet with anyone. "

4. The level of requirements and salaries

It is no secret that companies try to get acquainted with potential victims of headhunting at such conferences, and developers sometimes go to become such. There are almost no “direct deals” and transfer of offers, but everyone is happy to take the opportunity to test the ground with colleagues. The key points are to find out who and how much gets (and for what exactly), who has any pitfalls in the work purely in the process. And many of our guests note that conferences are socialization (as far as possible in the developer community), that is, acquaintances and connections between companies. Plus, the developer can see the possibilities of working with sponsoring companies, which are most often international holdings with a range of good and interesting projects.

That is, a trip to the conference is an increase in money, not only due to receiving some non-trivial information, but also due to your greater awareness. And often this awareness can only be received personally and only from friends. Just do not tell your Eichar if the company pays for the tickets.

By the way, for the Eychars themselves, this is also important (although we don’t let them) - they get a tick for sending you to study, you have gone through some professional development, etc. Well, who in the company with the working climate has everything in order - they also have increased loyalty. Because listening to the complaints of other developers at work, and not to the language or framework is music at heart.

How to get the most?

The correct scenario, in my opinion, is:

1. Prepare a plan for taking over the conference in advance, that is, read about each report and see how interesting the speaker is. Most likely, you have 2-3 reports that you will go to exactly, and you need to designate those that you will visit “in between”. The best way to understand whether you need it or not is to watch the 3-4 minutes video of this speaker from the previous conference, if there was one. If not, just read his publications.
   
   
2. After the reports, the speakers go "to talk" in a special zone where you can discuss burning issues with them. It is better to set aside time for this discussion (half an hour after the report, for example) and still collect the questions themselves. Part of yours, part of you probably will want to ask your colleagues who do not go (ask them if there is something important that needs to be clarified).
   
   
3. If you come to the report, and he does not insert you - to hell with politeness, get up and leave, even if you are sitting in the middle of the row. In the adjacent halls more reports.
   
   
4. It is necessary to know in advance which of your friends will come. This is especially important for those who come to the conference from another city. Plan with them dinners, dinners, gatherings in the middle of the day.
   
   
5. In the "reservation", that is, outside the reporting area, there are special booths. Most often they either have Eychar and PM, or the developer of the tool. The right questions to the developers: “We use your shnyaga, is there anything else interesting?”, “But we use your competitor, how do you better?” And “Who are you?” You can learn a lot of new things and get discounts on products (they will be useful companies), or keys for trial versions with restrictions - this is to potestit in your team, and if it comes in handy - buy.
   
   
6. With any question before the conference (in general, any!) Do not hesitate to write orgam. All contacts you have in the ticket, as a rule. More specifically in our case, it is useful to note which reports are of most interest to you. By this vote we choose the size of the hall. The most popular go to the main hall, and the rest - to the halls less. Sometimes it happens that in a small hall it becomes crowded: if you do not want to crowd, you should vote.
   
   
7. Catering is expensive, so tickets without food are often much cheaper. Yes, you can take sandwiches from home (coffee and tea will be free anyway), but if the company pays you, then you should use your dinner for one hundred percent. To start, do not use the "urinal" seating, that is, try to occupy not the most distant free space, but sit down to someone who does not look like Eychara. And then just ask who is working on what, at the table. A good discussion will turn out, which sooner or later will come to either a massacre, or a discussion of the nuances and development of all life hacking, or a story about tool bugs.

In general, something like this, step by step building hardcore (so that there is more non-trivial knowledge and experts) and removing everything that is of little use (advertising reports and banal booths at the exhibition), we came to a certain point that the tasks from Joker and .NET began to be used in technical interviews, and in some vacancies visiting the Joker / JPoint became a “bonus” for advanced engineers. Well, JUG participants come back to us, so every year the conference gets bigger and bigger.

And finally, a story from one of our regular guests at conferences:

“Well, such a vivid example is, for example, the report of Roman Elizarov“ Expect your happiness without blocking ”. That is, after his report, I began to experiment with his information, which he gave. After six months, I had a solution that suddenly came in handy at work. That is very much production managed to unload. Alexey Shipilyov has a lot of things: all sorts of nuances that help to more subtly realize what I see when profiling. On any metrics with production. Today, I have already managed to remove three useful things, which I, as I arrive, will look at how it is used ... A tool for searching for deadlock preventive. This is a profiler from Kuksenko, which also does not have code, which profiler usually does not take, and I could not figure out what to do with it. Now I at least know where I can dig ... I just take pictures, write down along the way. Well, plus “Debriefing” learned from the same place. As a result, I now constantly hang out in their chat, and there again, we can discuss with specialists, with the same Alexey (not later than on Tuesday, he suggested something to me that I urgently needed to understand what was going on in my production ). In principle, the horizon is simply expanding. That is, first I myself went, then every time I began to draw someone from the staff. This time, the organization has already realized that there is a benefit, a big benefit. They allocated a large quota, and even this quota was not enough, and some of ours have already arrived at our own expense. That is, we have a whole gang here now. And this is probably the most valuable source of information that is no longer available. ”

In general, something like that. Joker 2017 is already on sale , by the way.